Fears

I'm extremely excited about the arrival of this newest little Sams baby. We are all prepared for her, at least to the best of our abililties. I have the clothes all set - washed, dried, folded, put away by size. I have disposable diapers and wipes for her, until she fits in her cloth diapers. I have the baby food mill and the blender ready for when she eats solids. I have the blankets, the receivers, the bouncer seat, the pack and play, the crib, the nursing pads, the diaper bin, and the slings. I am taking Evening Primrose Oil and I have my Red Raspberry Leaf Tea. I've got my Swiss ball to sit on, and my midwife on standby.

But the what ifs keep popping up. I can be doing something normal, like washing my dishes, when suddenly I'm thinking about the what ifs. And the what ifs bring fear.

I know that fear is not from God. I know that fear is not something I have to live with. But it's very real and it's very obvious to me.

Ignorance was bliss. When I got pregnant with Oceana my biggest fear was that she would arrive via C-section. Second on the list was, what if the gender was wrong? We'll have to return all this pink stuff! Our friend's lost their son who was born at 26 weeks, after spending 6 weeks with him in the NICU. But it still didn't hit home with me that sometimes the ending's not as happy as you want it to be. Then a year later, our friends Jevon and Jenn had their son and he passed away less than a week later. This was my first introduction to Trisomy. My first introduction to something that went wrong from the very conception of the baby. And yet, it still didn't make sense to me. I just thought he had a "bad form of Down Syndrome" (that's literally how I explained it to people, for lack of understanding).

And then one fateful day in August 2007 we learned what a neural tube defect was. What an encephalocele was. What else could be wrong with our son. A long list of possiblities. None of them were good.

And then I sought out people on the internet with similar stories. And I learned about microcephaly, Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13. I learned about fatal forms of dwarfism and heart issues. I learned about stillbirth. I learned about extended NICU stays. And I learned that sometimes women walk out of the maternity wing without a carseat in hand.

Ignorance was bliss. Before I knew all this, I could just be excited about blue and pink.

But now? Now, I have to work to "forget" all the possibilities. All the problems. All the potential issues. And some days I do better than others.

I have very real fears. And at the forefront of those fears, is the fear that I won't get to keep her. Just being honest my friends, just being honest. I have no reason to think there's a problem, just simply the fear of past experience.

Keep us in your prayers, dear ones. It's a difficult road to walk, even though it should be a happy one. I'm quite happy to stay pregnant for another week. In another week, I may not be so thrilled. But at 39 weeks, I can handle it for one more week. She's safe. She's sound. I just need to get my head in the game. Maybe she hasn't arrived yet, because I'm not emotionally ready for her to arrive. In some regards, I don't know when I'll be ready.

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